Looking at a new pc finally

ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/XFPkv3

Thoughts? Tweaked version of a suggested build from part picker. I haven't built a new pc in....almost 10 years now?

@Wipqozn if its in your budget, id get a i7 or i9. a lot of games nowadays need the extra bit of cpu power

@Wipqozn And don't need a tower cooler for an i5

And faster memory from a more recognizable brand

And I would probably go with the Corsair or SeaSonic PSU instead

ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/zcH8TW/… for instance. 3600 memory seems to be the sweet spot right now.

the pathing AI is... questionable

several times now i have revealed traps right next to a party member, don't even queue up a movement command, and then they walk right over jostling for position between each other

Also, Shove is OP

it is pretty great, although i try to avoid shoving into bottomless pits because getting loot is also nice

side note, mage hand is a great cantrip for this same reason

@Yuuki another nice one is a battle ending and everything returning to real-time mode, your companions automatically moving towards you right through the cloud of daggers you cast and that is still active

I'm considering starting over as a melee bard. I'm currently playing Monk, but I picked a wrong background and you can't change backgrounds through the respec guy

oh wait, background is mostly irrelevant, so I can just respec to bard and choose different proficiencies

@SaintWacko blame shog9

quite easy to Greasemonkey something similar

but everyone needs to be using the script, so....

not-a-solution

ktane.timwi.de

I used to be a KTaNE fan, and it seems the modifications have become... too many.

Opponent had two 1/1 Spirit creature tokens with flying that I managed to remove after casting Silver Scrutiny with X=7 (for {5}{U}{U} with cost reducrion from the two Haughty Djinns). Managed to get the removal I needed to break open the opponent's position.

Anyhoo, Mr.Oak, good game.

@Dragonrage @MBraedley thanks guys

aargh, can't type properly on mobile

@bwDraco I played so much Magic back in high school and university. High School especially. How I spent most of my lunch breaks.

Heh.

I knew I was going to die the next turn because of the Phyrexian Arenas (yes, that's currently in Standard), so I had to draw as much as I could while still leaving a few lands untapped.

Had just 7 cards left in my library.

@bwDraco Been a while, but if you can't draw at start of turn you lose, right?

Might be confusing it with another card game though. I've played quite a few of them. RIP Netrunner.

@Wipqozn If you attempt to draw from an empty library, you lose the next time state-based actions are checked.

That means if you tried to draw from an empty library (and specifically "draw", not "mill" or anything else), before the next time a player would get priority, you lose the game.

@Dragonrage @MBraedley thoughts on this: ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/HV3cCd

upgrade to an i7, swapped out the memory and psu

@SaintWacko Isnt a warlock just a cleric late for the job?

@Wipqozn I need to remind myself that 1900 CAD is more like 1200 EUR, because otherwise I'd call that a seriously overpriced computer

@Wipqozn GPU prices are still ridiculous. But yeah, those changes are good

@Nzall also, just like everything, I guess PC parts prices have exploded

@Fredy31 actually, it's not that bad, apart from current gen GPU prices, PSUs and some CPUs, most components have actually dropped in price significantly

1200 EUR for a computer with those parts is a fair price

yeah GPU are the main thing that's absurd right now

@Nzall yeha I hate it, ha

-----/////

my cat says hi ^

So I respec'd from Warlock 3 to Warlock 2 and honestly, I don't feel that much of a gameplay difference. Sure my Warlock slots are 1st-level instead of 2nd-level but it's honestly negligible. Which is a good thing because that means I didn't get that much out of the third Warlock level.

I was thinking about dipping into Bard a bit on my Warlock

Granted, the fighting style is different. Without +CHA to weapons, I'm spending more time at range.

I'm currently a Pact of the Blade Warlock 4

I have a Glaive of Monster Slaying bound as my pact weapon, which is fun

@SaintWacko Bard dip is not great because Bards don't really have a lot of good front-loaded features. Maybe Jack of All Trades for skillmonkeying but that's it.

Yeah, that's kinda what I had been seeing

I had debated dipping into bard when I leveled up to 4 last night, but decided against it

If you want a skillmonkey dip, I think I'd consider Rogue for Expertise plus you get some sneak attack. If you plan on maining Warlock though, it's probably best to stick with it.

Warlock is an excellent class to dip into but not a great class to dip out of.

If you do want to multiclass though, Paladin is an excellent choice.

Ooh, I should look at that

But honestly I'll probably just stick with Warlock

Easier to manage

And it's doing well

Divine Smites using spell slots that regen on short rest? 🤌

I cast Crown of Madness on a boss last night and his minions took out half his health before he shook it off

And he killed two of them

While the party hid in the rafters

I've been thinking about party comp and I think the best way to go about it is not to look at party roles but rather recovery types.

@Yuuki Keep in mind that Paladin can restrict the options you're allowed in a questline, unless you wish to become an Oathbreaker

Oathbreaker doesn't seem as pure evil in BG3 like it's flavored in tabletop though.

Oh man, yeah, 2 levels into an Oath of Vengeance Paladin seems amazing

@MBraedley Seriously though. When I built my last pc paying this much for a GPU would get me top of the line.

IIRC, one of the tenets of Oath of Vengeance is to not bargain with monsters/villains, so just keep that in mind.

Found something pretty useful in Act 1 yesterday, it's likely spoilers though.

@Yuuki Ah, that is a good point

Tangentially, I'm going for a skillmonkey face build with my MC and I rolled a 3 on a history check last night and succeeded against a DC 20 skill check despite having 9 INT (-1 modifier).

My backstory in my head is that I was taken as a child by the fey. I eventually escaped (as an adult) and got back to my home, but it had been destroyed and everyone was dead. I ended up back with the fey, since that was all I knew. Having grown up with them I'm trying to behave like them. Deals and backstabbing and tricks and messing with people's minds. That "backstory" would also work well with vengeance

So things are working out pretty well, I think.

I'm hoping nothing in the game will contradict that backstory lol

Well, from the conversations I've had so far, the game assumes you're from Baldur's Gate (the city).

@Yuuki That's absurd

@Yuuki Oh dang, that's true. I forgot about that

Warped Headband of Intellect <3

Hmm

My best bonus has been... +11 on a skill check, I think

I feel like I have to keep a cleric in my party just for the Guidance. It's so useful

Also, I had a lot of fun in a certain place, after I talked my way in, picking people off by shoving them into chasms

Minor Illusion + shove is a bit OP

@SaintWacko but then you miss out on the loot ;-)

No loot, though, which I suppose is the tradeoff

Lol

3 - 2 + 4 + 1d6 (spoilers) + 1d4 (guidance) + 4 (proficiency) + 1d6 (bardic inspiration) + some other stuff I don't remember > 20

and the enemies are also quite likely to do the same, you have to be pretty careful not to stand in a place where they can push you into a chasm

There's a few skills I have now that I mathematically can't fail a DC15 check unless I nat 1.

WHICH IS NOT A THING FOR SKILL CHECKS, LARIAN

Crit success/fail on skill checks is one of my pet peeves because it's a misunderstanding of 5e rules but I guess Larian liked the memes too much.

Plus, I guess it's minimized by the fact that they can lock down which skill checks are available unlike tabletop play.

Incidentally, this may be confirmation bias, but does anyone else see a lot more nat 1s than nat 20s?

I like crit fail skill checks, but it only works if you're only asking for rolls when something could go wrong, rather than just throwing them out constantly

In actual TTPRG play I mean

I don't like them because skill checks are invariably more binary than combat rolls.

@MadScientist Yeah, I got shoved out of the rafters a couple times yesterday lol

You can always just attack again next round (or even in the same round with Extra Attack) but DMs rarely let you retry a skill check.

And it goes the other way for crit successes too.

Crit successes incentivize throwing out whatever skill you can think of even if you suck at the skill in question.

Yeah, so you should only ask for a skill check if it's going to matter, and crit fails/successes on skill checks mean that there's always a chance of either outcome regardless of ability modifier

But yeah, don't allow someone to roll to pick up a building

Rather than saying "you can roll for it" even though the DC is too high to ever be hit. That's just a waste of everyone's time

Equally don't roll to open an unlocked door

The other thing is that combat crits are moderated by the fact that effect chance and magnitude are separated by two rolls (attack and damage) whereas skill checks are one and done.

Oh, I don't mean than a crit fail is worse than a regular fail. I just mean that the crit represents there always being the chance of something unexpected happening regardless of how prepared you are

Although I will admit it does feel bad to roll low on damage for crit hit.

Like a rogue with +30 to unlock a door can always find that the door has been warped by the weather and literally no longer has room to move in the frame

I do kinda wish that crit success/crit fail was different than a regular success/fail

But I can see why they didn't do that

Having a different outcome for every skill check that was rarely seen would be a lot of work

Something like that shouldn't be represented by a dice roll though, although that depends on what you define the d20 for a skill roll to represent.

Like a warped frame doesn't make sense for a rogue to crit fail but then the wizard doesn't crit and gets it open.

The roll is for the outcome, it doesn't matter whose fault it is

Once it's failed, the reason it failed becomes cannon, someone else can't then try to open it

After the rogue fails, they unlock the door but it can't move

It depends on whether the DM would allow a second check after that though. That's a debate about how play behind the screen goes.

You could then try a strength check to shift the door though

Yeah, you shouldn't allow a second skill check to try something impossible. If the fail means the lock is jammed, or the thing your lifting out of the well broke. A new successful check wouldn't magically revert that

tl;dr any good or bad mechanic can be compensated for by a competent DM but that won't always happen

I'm pretty sure "only ask for rolls when the outcome is in doubt" is in the book

It's definitely in the rulebook for every other system I've run

Yes but not every DM will devise a "this outcome is now impossible" after a crit fail like the situation you described.

You should know what both success and failure looks like before asking for the roll, and they should both be interesting

If you can't think of an interesting failure state ("it doesn't work, try again" isn't interesting) then don't ask for a roll

I agree

One thing Pathfinder 2E uses which I like is the idea of Critical Success and Failure even on skill checks, and its based on how well you perform compared to the DC.

So succeeding by 10 or more is a critical success.

So if you do that, you can have there be multiple results that can happen, which is neat.

Pathfinder 2E is just neat.

Yeah, gradations of success/failure is nice. I don't like how binary skill checks are in 5e.

That's a separate thing, but yeah I like "extra success" in other systems

@Yuuki I also hate how 1 and 20 are always automtic success and failures.

Fate has a good success with style, and blades has a good "success but..." system

In Pathfinder 2E, 1 and 20 just change the degree of success one level

Sure, that's something a DM could always do, but "having a good DM" is kinda like the answer to every problem with every system.

To the point where it's not a good solution at all.

@Wipqozn That's what we were talking about. I'm saying I like it because otherwise there are rolls that you literally can't succeed. In which case why are we bothering rolling dice

@Yuuki It's not just "be a good DM" it's "do these specific things"

@Ronan The only reason to roll dice in those situations, where success is impossible, is if you don't want the players to realize that.

but I agree that you shouldn't force your players to roll dice if there's no interesting outcome

@Wipqozn I guess that's an interesting niche situation

The thing is, a check that may be impossible for you might not be impossible for someone else (in your party). Conversely a no-effort check for you might be impossible for someone else. Both are unlikely in 5e's bounded accuracy though. Crit success/failure skill checks incentivizes anyone to give it a try because the skilled character might be unlucky or the unskilled character might be lucky. Which can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you want out of your game.

Also, success doesn't always mean "you get exactly what you want"

and "you failed, try again" CAN be interesting if you pair it with something else. For example, maybe there's a time constraint. There could be monsters patrolling, and if you spend too long trying to knock over some pillar the monsters patrol by you.

Success for picking up a house means you don't kill yourself

@Wipqozn Oh yeah for sure. I'd call that "you failed, try again but..."

@Ronan yeah that's a better way to phrase it.

Killing yourself on a skill check is rarely an interesting result though :P

Basically, if your players can try over and over again with no downside at all, don't make them roll at all.

@Yuuki Take 30 damage from being crushed then

ROCKS FALL

Incidentally, BG3 inspiration seems a little lopsided, although maybe that's due to my play style.

and I'd say whether or not death is a interesting result depends on the group

some groiups are fine with deaths, some aren't. Gotta know the players.

@Yuuki Bardic Inspiration?

I get a lot more inspiration on Gale and my MC as Sages whereas I haven't gotten as much on Karlach.

I guess that was a bad example, I just mean that success is the best outcome, not always a good one

@Wipqozn No, inspiration points from doing background-appropriate stuff. Lets you spend it to reroll any check.

@Ronan I agree

But yeah, different rules work for different players/gms/settings/tones

PAthfinder 2E does that a lot with spells. Success on a save is often "The spell effect isn't as bad" and a critical success negates it entirely.

@Yuuki ah okay

@Wipqozn sure, but dying on a nat 1 knowledge check because you induced an aneurysm from trying to recall information just seems spiteful on the part of the DM

@Yuuki I mean it is, ha. I don't think @Ronan was implying every check should include death as a result.

and neither was I

@Wipqozn You don't know how I run games

Might be funny in the right situation though.

@Ronan You know what, fair.

Every step takes a dc 1 dex save, failure you fall literally into hell

I was part of a christmas one-shot a few months...well, back at christmas, and half the party died. Luckily Santa brought them all back to life via the magic of christmas.

@Wipqozn come on, that barely applies here

@Yuuki Oh it's not relevant here at all, I just wanted to share it.

Oh wait, that line is supposed to be a response to "the true meaning of Christmas" not "magic of Christmas".

For real though, I basically never have character deaths in my games. I don't really play games with that tone

Side note, everyone should go watch Leverage, it's an excellent show.

@Yuuki BG3 definitely doesn't, even when it makes sense lol

Back to inspiration though, Sage inspiration seems pretty easy to get since you get it from succeeding certain skill checks and reading certain books.

@Yuuki See, I feel like a nat 1 on a knowledge check should be "You're quite certain you remember this bit of useful knowledge, but it's wrong, potentially in a dangerous way

Whereas I think I've only gotten Outlander inspiration like... twice?

@SaintWacko Some players won't rollplay that though

So that's not always going to work

@Ronan Well those players suck

And should be called out for metagaming

@SaintWacko Oh yeah I agree

@Ronan Aren't knowledge checks hidden rolls?

I spent the whole of a session being paranoid for a thing I knew wasn't real

@Wipqozn If the player rolls a 1 they'll know anything they're about to be told is wrong

Hidden rolls are largely a DM choice of play style.

@Yuuki Pathfinder 2E actually suggests it for some rolls, such as knowledge checks.

So that's what I'm thinking of./

Ah fair enough, that's a good workaround

@Ronan yeah that's why I do hidden for knowledge. THey've got no idea.

@Yuuki You're actually one of the Baldurians that got abducted by the Mind Flayer ship in the intro cinematic

Honestly, I would prefer hidden rolls for a lot of things, but that's not explicit in the 5e ruleset and it runs counter to the simple fact that players like to roll dice.

The other thing I was thinking was you give them vague info, as if this is pity info, but it's wrong

although Recall Knowledge in PF2E is often homebrewed a bit. Although a revised version is coming out... not sure if it changes it.

@Yuuki Right, I'd be sad if the DM were doing my rolls for me

@SaintWacko It's only for certain kinds of checks. Most rolls should be done by the player.

because yeah, rolling is fun

I wanted to try PF2E for the campaign I'm trying to start, but the players wanted to stick with 5e :(

@SaintWacko The trick is to not give them a choice haha.

I want to play PF2E but no one knows is interested so I haven't even looked at the ruleset.

I started a pf2e game, and there was no choice given.

I do find that I'm more "active" in games played over text than voice, so I kinda wanna try looking for a text-only game.

Well, for... all of them this will be their second ever game, so I can kinda understand wanting to stick with what they know

But that's not a paradigm most people are interested in.

@SaintWacko ah fair

@Yuuki I can see how that would be fun

The benefit of text-only is that it gives more time for thought but it does also reduce spontaneity.

I don't have an issue with typing speed so in my experience, it just slows everyone else down enough so that I can get something out.

Otherwise, I kinda spend too long thinking about what I want to do, whether that would make sense for my character, etc.

Whether you can say it in the proper accent

Plus, I find that pronoun use is a lot easier over text.

I'm currently playing a nonbinary/ambiguous character (newly born plasmoid with no concept of gender let alone gender identity) and I use "he/him" accidentally a lot in voice.

Man, I loved all the character creating options in BG3

Larian might want to notify people that there's a family rating setting before starting initial character creation though.

I kinda want Larian to add a Magic Mirror-esque thing to reroll race and background.

I'm fine with my character in my solo campaign as-is, but I kinda wanna reroll a character I'm playing in multiplayer.

I think BG3 topped out at 800k concurrent players at last count?

steamcharts.com/app/1086940

814,466 all-time peak

kinda strange how there is players stats from 2020

closed beta testing?

BG3 has been in Early Access for like 3 years.

> Baldur's Gate 3 has been in early access since October 2020.

That's when I got it.

I wonder if recent AAA fumbles are part of the reason why BG3 has blown up so much.

Historically, CRPGs do not get this much attention.

@Yuuki Ah-ha, yeah

@Yuuki Is there any option to change your appearance? In the character creation my character looked fine, but in some of the cutscenes she looks... really young. I'm telling myself it's just the fey influence, but it's still a little weird

@SaintWacko As far as I am aware, no.

Ah, well

It's mostly just in conversations

huge fan of the fake movie stuff since WGA and SAG-AFTRA are on strike

@Fredy31 I like that more games are offering this.

Cyberpunk also had junk selection options

I will be unsatisfied until I have the options for pincers.

@Yuuki Ahahaha

New Atelier game announced!

... and it's a live service gacha game...

Didn't they just shut down the servers on an Atelier gacha?

> Penises C and D no longer clip through some githyanki clothing.

store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/…

What a time to be alive

I saw a real good clip like "chat, it's fine, it's just going to cut to black like in Cyberpunk. See, there it goes. What the--"

@Unionhawk Horny devs be horny

I also heard you can dual wield sausages.

@Wipqozn looks good to me

So I changed it again and bought it

Upon more research I decided I really didn't need an i7, so I downgrade to an i5... and upgraded to a 4070

@Wipqozn good choice

If I wind up buying baldurs gate 3, and I really shouldn't, I'd almost certainly go with Bard.

Good ol' Bards. Singing, and a dancing, and a spelling, and fast talking.

Though judging from the benchmark numbers (you did check benchmarks before you bought it, right...?) the 6800XT would probably have been a better card than the 4070, unless you care about raytracing

@Nzall 4070 was in stock

So less upgrade and more sidegrade, really.

@Wipqozn i am tempted to get it as well. was thinking of maybe doing a warlock.

not sure if that would be the easiest class for someone somewhat new to CRPG

@Dragonrage Warlocks are for nerds. Nerds allergic to bees, specifically.

was also wondering if meme stealth archer would be good.

@Dragonrage Easiest class would I think actually be a bard

but if it's anything like 5e, and I assume it's identicaly, the Warlock has better damage whereas the Bard has better support.

but really, you're gonna have a full party of 4 to control regardless, so it's not going to matter that much

Also, one of your companions you meet in Act 1 is a warlock

Plus, in the first dungeon, you come across someone who will join you and then give you the option to change everything except your background and your appearance

fancy

so it's easy to change if you don't like it. I already changed my Tav like 2 times

i was watching someone do character creation and i was very lost as to their thought process. they didnt seem to prioritize synergy at all between race/class etc

It's first and foremost a roleplaying game, if it's anything like the old ones, so min/maxing isn't required.

@Dragonrage That's because the game uses a rule from one of the optional game books that instead of specific racial bonuses per race, every race can just choose where to give +2/+1 attributes, and most other things are really just flavor

So far I didn't feel like you need to optimize stuff that much, as long as you don't try too difficult encounters early.

Just... Make sure you got someone who has Sleight of Hand, because there are A LOT of locked doors and traps

I'm running a Bard, there's certainly a lot of lockpicking and disarming

One last tip I'll give you before I go to bed

A cleric for boosting your rolls is also very useful

save early, save often, and don't be afraid to reload your game. F5 and F8 are your best friends in this game, and you can save at just about any point in the game, including right before you try a skill check

So if you want to save scum your way through the game, that's a perfectly valid strategy

they wanted to be someone evil and chose dwarf, which are typically thought of as evil. they did eventually choose duergar for sub species, which is more evil aligned for a dwarf. then they chose to be a sorcerer with draconic roots for a white dragon (cold), which dwarves arent usually thought of as magicians, and typically dont have cold affinity. i believe background was charlatan which i guess is a bit evil? it just felt very chaotic and odd choices

Dwarven sorcerers do exist, I know there's a setting where dwarves are inherently anti-magic but that's not the case for Faerun.

Evil isn't something you're really going to express well in character creation, that'll be done in the game proper.

@Nzall Bard gameplay is probably simple, but bard advancement can be weird.

There's already a knowledge trap with Lore Bard.

Picking Arcana, History, or Sleight of Hand in your background or starting proficiencies can screw you when you pick up your subclass.

Since College of Lore is hard-coded to give you those proficiencies so you're wasting possible proficiency choices since double-dipping is not a thing.

@Yuuki true, but in standard fantasy, certain races and classes just have more evil tendencies. like drow are typically more evil than elves. dwarves tend to be more fighters/smiths and more earth/metal/fire affinities

dwarves also tend to be portrayed as very concerned about honor and lineage.

Duergar are a different culture though.

Mismatches between "standard fantasy" and any particular setting should be expected though. Creators will always remix things to be different.

TES Orcs are actually also elves.

TES Dwarves are also actually also elves.

(there's even an argument to be made that TES British people are also elves)

I think Jagged Alliance 3 will be the first game I played on my new PC.

I shall resist the temptation to buy baldurs gate 3, since I suspect I won't actually enjoy it. CRPGs aren't really my thing anymore.

@Wipqozn xcom, but with twitch streamers as recruits?

@Dragonrage Sure

I hear the writing is god awful

hmm... so apparently i should be long resting a lot more than i currently am

@Yuuki Just long rest between every turn in combat